Apple has suffered a patent defeat involving some of the technologies it uses in its iTunes store. The company has been ordered to pay $533m (£344m) to Smartflash, a British Virgin Islands-based firm that owns and licenses tech-related patents but does not make products itself. Smartflash had asked for a bigger payout, but said it was "happy" with the verdict. Apple said it intended to appeal and called for patent reform. "We refused to pay off this company for the ideas our employees spent years innovating and unfortunately we have been left with no choice but to take this fight up through the court system," the iPhone maker said in a statement. Apple's defeat by Smartflash is the latest in a series of victories by companies referred to as non-practising entities (NPEs), and denounced by their critics as being "patent trolls".....Read more here